RANDA JARRAR

If you’re an Austinite, and a fan of Denis Johnson’s work, he’ll be reading at the Katherine Anne Porter House in Kyle at 7:30 tonight.

I’ve been spending the week translating a short story and a couple of poems, all by Libyan authors, for the Words Without Borders anthology. It’s been spanking me. This has been quite possibly the most difficult batch of translations I’ve ever done; at some point I was looking up 3 out of every 5 words. Which is very unusual for me. It’s interesting, because most of my translation work has been for Palestinian, Egyptian, and Lebanese authors. I won’t make any generalizations, but I was wondering to myself today if Libyan authors’– or possibly North African writers’ – usage of Arabic is more crafty and intricate than others’ in the region. Hmmm. Maybe my Arabic’s just getting rusty…

I found out from this Chronicle article that T.E. Lawrence’s tattered copy of Ulysses is at the HRC here in Austin:

[The copy]… stands out for its full range of appeals to the senses. The volume has been rebound in sumptuous wine-red leather ornamented with gilt, and it gives every indication of frequent use, including a well-rubbed binding. Inside, on more than 150 pages, are pencil annotations about the Dublin landmarks in Joyce’s masterpiece, as well as more than a few black smudges and even a couple of biscuit crumbs.

In addition, Lawrence’s copy of Ulysses is remarkable for its smell. The book has been shown to many visitors and students over the years. When it is carefully removed from the shelf and ceremoniously divested of its acid-free box, which helps preserve the volume, even from several inches away you can smell a sweet, somewhat smoky aroma that suffuses every bit of paper and leather. Many people assume it must be the residue of pipe tobacco, perhaps the fruit-scented variety. The aroma is a spur to the imagination, summoning up romantic visions of Lawrence by his fireside, puffing reflectively on a meerschaum, immersed in the drama of Leopold Bloom.

In my version of that romantic vision, Lawrence is toking on a sheesha.

The Daily Star reviewsAboulela’s Minaret:

Her account of a post-Ramadan party where all the women in Najwa’s mosque unveil themselves for the Eid reads like a lame, sanitized knockoff of “Sex in the City.” The way Aboulela writes about notions of mercy doesn’t square with Najwa’s immature and stubbornly superficial worldview. To insure the book’s target reader – clearly dim-witted and definitely Western – understands said notions of mercy, Najwa explains: It’s like “exfoliation, clarifying, deep-pore cleanse – words I knew from the beauty pages of magazines and the counters of Selfridges. Now they were for my soul not my skin.” Is she joking?

Hmmm… I hope so.

I have not. Please
stop calling at what is
on my end of the world
a reasonable hour,
on yours,
not. I am alive and well.
Worry not!

The real tragedy, dear relatives,
is that this happened
this weekend here.
Worse than getting flooded out
is not getting to chill
at my regular coffee shop
because there were too many
annoying non-Austinites
drinking iced lattes.
They suck.

I don’t know what it is about them
that I despise:
the girls’ golden lame’ handbags?
The guys’ emo haircuts?
Or maybe it’s that they’ll get to leave Austin
when it’s over,
and I won’t?

But enough about me.
How are you?
Mama, you live so close
to car bombings and fires
and such,
I worry about you.

Auntie,
You are in the same city
Arafat caught his mystery
illness in. How is Ramallah?
Ya allah!
How I miss it,
and miss you!

Uncle,
I heard the windows in the old
house in Jenin have been blown out
and re-installed more times
than I’ve visited it.
I worry about you.

Cousin in Alexandria,
surrounded by boredom and sounds:
when you leave the house,
or even while indoors,
when you begrudgingly go about your chores,
you can hear the athaan in the distance,
the neighbor’s daughter’s yawn,
the milkman on his bicycle
balancing his tins on his shoulders.
I hope your dream comes true,
and you find a job soon.

Here it is quiet
and lonely
what a neat trick you’ve all played
by calling,
it’s you I miss,
you for whom I worry.
I’d almost given up hope
that we had anything left in common
but our worry unites us
at odd hours, on the phone.

And I likes Matisyahu: a hasidic cutie who toasts. Very cool. In an article about a Palestinian-Israeli hip hop concert last year, Matisyahu said:

“Music is neutral. … It can be used for religious purposes or for negativity. It can bring people together. It can bring Jews and Arabs together.”

Word.

Click on the first search result here to download “King Without A Crown.”

So, I’ve been getting ready to apply to grad schools. This is something I tend to do every fall. However, I think I’m actually going to apply this year.

It’s been 5 years since I dropped out of my second grad school excursion. By the time I was 22, I’d been in school for 18 years and was burnt the fuck out. I needed the past 5 years to chill and to “work.”

Also, my kid’s 9 now, and 9 is so much more handle-able than 4. He’s in a great school,dresses himself, and has a mohawk now, too, which means I don’t have to spend time on his grooming.

So, i’m prepping for the evil GRE – the normal one and the subject test. The subject test may as well be called the honky christian test. God DAMN that test is bullshit.

I’m working on my personal statement right now, too, and I can’t help but write unprofessional drafts that are very similar to this post. I know I have to tone it down, but whenever I do, I fall asleep.

Back to learning the difference between an epic invocation and an epithalamium. Because that shit’s really important to know when you call your apartment manager and ask for another month’s extension.

This month’s issue of the Cairo Review of Books commemorates 35 years since the death of Gamal Abdel-Nasser in September 1970.

Jeanette Winterson on Author Websites:

Hanif Kureishi has a miserable site, which looks as if it’s been generated at an Early Learning Centre based in Wigan, while Ruth Rendell has a publisher’s site harder to navigate than Bugdom Level Eight.

Miss Winterson’s site is sho nuff sexy, though.

I wouldn’t have known if miss Laila hadn’t emailed me the news:

I flipped through the BNAR 2005 last night, and in the back of the book, where Eggers put the stories that he had considered ‘notable’ for 2004, I saw a certain Randa Jarrar with “You Are a 14-Year Old…”!!

That’s pretty fucking fabulous. Every once in a while, I feel dejected about the writing… then something cool like this happens. Yay.

The anthology comes out in October.